The efficiency of pay-for-performance programs has long since become a debatable issue in the healthcare field. According to Delbanco et al. (2018), pay-for-performance (P4P) is the system where financial incentives and penalties are used to encourage providers to meet professional standards. Healthcare specialists are eligible for bonuses if their performance is in line with predetermined indicators. However, looking at the results this initiative’s implementation has produced, one might find that behind the good intentions, there are no substantial positive outcomes. This paper is focused on reasons for the US is moving to pay for performance for eligible providers.
Firstly, as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (2021) puts it, pay-for-performance – or value-based – programs are of utmost importance due to their help in moving towards paying providers in accordance with the quality of care they supply patients with, rather than quantity, which is to improve service quality. Secondly, the health care system’s incentives, in general, need to be reoriented from “volume” to “value,” and P4P is one of the options that is meant to do just that (Delbarco et al., 2018). The program, thus, has a great deal to do, and special hopes are pinned on it.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, this movement is not reliable enough in terms of helping to reach the aforementioned goals. Upon analyzing the outcomes, many reports claim that pay-for-performance is not sustainable. For instance, Kyeremanteng et al. (2019) state that quality, as well as efficiency, is difficult to measure, making the very essence of the program’s assessment system subjective. Moreover, financial penalties are provided for complications, some of which are totally preventable. Additionally, the relevance of such initiatives is lacking due to them being focused on procedures rather than evaluating multiple levels of performance (Kyeremanteng et al., 2019). Thus, this program is not very carefully thought out, which is why various challenges arise when attempting to employ it.
In conclusion, the pay-for-performance intentions are good – but that does not make their manifestation efficient. In order for any project to be successful, it needs to be equally excellent in both conceptualization and implementation. However, not all is lost for P4P: a good idea’s clever correcting can lead to brilliant results. In the future, people may hear about how this program has changed the approach to service quality in healthcare.
References
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (2021). Value-based programs.
Delbanco, S. F., Lehan, M., & Murray, R. (2018). The evidence on pay-for-performance: Not strong enough on its own? Health Affairs Blog. Web.
Kyeremanteng, K., Robidoux, R., D’Egidio, G., Fernando, S. M., & Neilipovitz, D. (2019). An analysis of pay-for-performance schemes and their potential impacts on health systems and outcomes for patients. Critical Care Research and Practice, 2019, 8943972.